Kent House

Updated 16 March 2022

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

As part of CQC's response to the COVID-19 pandemic we are looking at how services manage infection control and visiting arrangements. This was a targeted inspection looking at the infection prevention and control measures the provider had in place. We also asked the provider about any staffing pressures the service was experiencing and whether this was having an impact on the service.

This inspection took place on 21 January 2022 and was announced. We gave the service one working days' notice of the inspection.

Updated 16 March 2022

About the service

Kent House is a residential care home providing personal care and accommodation to people aged 65 and over, most of whom are living dementia. The service can support up to 40 people. At the time of the inspection the service was providing support to 33 people.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People were able to take positive risks. They were involved in monitoring safety in the service and in the recruitment of staff. People's relatives felt the service was a safe place for their family members to live. People’s medicines were administered and managed safely. The service had appropriate infection control and prevention systems in operation to provide a COVID-19 safe environment for people, staff and visitors.

People were offered a nutritious, balanced and culturally appropriate diet.

The service was well run and benefitted from an experienced registered manager and provider, who had good oversight of the service. The staff team were positive about the support they received from the registered manager, who was keen to develop the service further for the benefit of people in the home.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was Good (published 28 September 2019).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to medicines, staffing, pressure care, eating and drinking and the overall management of the service. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, effective and well-led only.

We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to coronavirus and other infection outbreaks effectively.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

The overall rating for the service has not changed from Good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Kent House on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.